1/43 ATS HS1 Michael Bleekemolen

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1/43 ATS HS1 Michael Bleekemolen

Post by Schummie »

Now a build on the other end of the spectrum from the Ferrari 500F2 build. Nearly a scratch build. I still missed Michael Bleekemolen in my Dutch F1 drivers collection. He drove just a few races, and qualified just in one.
On the Internet I ran across a kit in rather bad condition. It looked like a casting from an old model. Nontheless I bought it.

The quality is reather poor, but I don't blame the seller. I knew and saw what I was buying.

This was the picture of the finished kit on the Internet.

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Now it is only a poor look alike of the real car from Michael Bleekemolen on Watkins Glenn.

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So, a lot of work to be done on the body, wings and then some.

And this is what was in the kit.

The roll bar and the instrument panel
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The wheels

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The rear wing

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The seat.

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The exhausts.

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Part of the rear suspension and oil tank.

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The engine with gear box.


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The chassis.

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Some other parts.

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Tires and steering wheel.


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Front of the resin body. Part of the front suspension broken.


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Front wing a bit, ore more than a bit twisted.


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View of the total body.


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Now the only reasonable ATS H1 I could find was build by an American builder. But this also wasn't the right version.
But it certainly is better than the result where this kit would bring me.


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So I looked in mu spare parts box, and took what I thought could work as a basis to begin with.


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Then I start with the removal of the front suspension which was casted together with the body. A precarious job because the resin was very brittle.


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A first fit of the metal mod. Maybe I have to ajust the with later in the process.


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The front suspension removed from the chassis.


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And also the total rear suspension. No saving possible. Not much left of the chassis, but still good to be the basis I hope.


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And the first mods on the body. The cockpit made in the right rectangular shape behind the driver.


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The removal of the air box. Bleekemole drove without one on Watkins Glenn.


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After examination of the front wing on the resin body I decided that these wings were beyond rescue. I also removed them. I adjusted the right one to follow the rounded shape of the body. The left one still to do.


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I plan to basicly put together a new kit. I first take the parts I want to use and make them roughly fitting. So after that I basicly have a new kit to start from.
And after that I proceed like any other kit.
At least thats the plan. We're not nearly there.
Hope you enjoy this kind of build between l the very beautiful en detailded examples I see on this website.

See you next update.
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Re: 1/43 ATS HS1 Michael Bleekemolen

Post by Mr.Grumpy »

lots of work but it will be a satisfying build. you’re off to a good start. i’m sure you could use a few tameo replacement parts in there too.
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Re: 1/43 ATS HS1 Michael Bleekemolen

Post by jorgeralvear »

I admire your determination. I would have looked at those pieces and given up. Tameo is so much better but when you complete this, what an accomplishment.

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Re: 1/43 ATS HS1 Michael Bleekemolen

Post by Formulamike »

Rare project. a lot of work, but nice , good to see this.
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Re: 1/43 ATS HS1 Michael Bleekemolen

Post by orsoballerino »

Good luck!
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Re: 1/43 ATS HS1 Michael Bleekemolen

Post by racingkars »

I will follow with interest. I had plans of doing a scale 1/20.
Kars

http://www.racingkars.nl (WIPs)
http://www.racingkars.com (sales)
Websites in Nederlands/English
English is not my native language, so sorry for any incorrect words or style... I have no intention to offend you.

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Re: 1/43 ATS HS1 Michael Bleekemolen

Post by Schummie »

The next update. A bit of a metal worket one. Filing, sawing and sanding.
First adapting the remaining part of the chassis to accept the suspension parts of the donor parts.
I need some slots on the underside. Carefully. When the chassis breaks it's the end of the line.

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Dry fitting to find the right location of the rear part of the suspension. The front part already flush with the chassis.


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Another hour of filing and sanding. Also some more ajustments to the rear of the chassis to accept the donor engine.
The donor engine also has some problems. More on that later.


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And fitting again.


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From the top side I'm reasonable happy with the result. I think it is a bit wide. To correct this I could remove a few mm between al suspension parts. But by sawing all in half, I also risc losing a lot of the strenght. On a model already severely beaten.
So for now I leave it. I must accept that this model will be stand off scale in comparisment with al WCT Tameo kit.



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Then the donor engine. On closer examination it has a casting flaw. The gear box is on a angle with the engine.
So again the saw and the file out of the tool box.



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Also the white metal drive shafts removed. I will drill holes there to accept chrome silver nikkel ones.



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And the result of the repairing actions.



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Then the next problem. The donor kit I used for the rear uspensions hs one upright missing.



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I did think about making a casting from the remaining one. But that proved to bring a lot of extra costs and work to produce good moulds.
So over to plan B/
Also a lot of work, but no kost at all. I used the support of the original rear wing to file and sand a new one.
First the raw form.



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It is still a bit off!!



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But a few hours later I got an acceptable result. However later it nearly fully dissaperars in the rims.
Thats a good thing, because I made a fairly stupid mistake. Can you guys tell wat I did wrong?


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I little pauze with al the sawing, filing and sanding. Later I will make a new wing support for the donor wing. I plan to make this from the old rear wing. The front side has about the right angle and size. And this way I do use a lot of the original kit.



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Made two radiator parts which will be glued to the sides of the chassis on the place of the misformed white metal parts which I removed.



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The air intake trumpets and ignition part is in one casted part. I polished this as good as possible. Later I wil fit spark plug cables. To get as manay detail as possible I will use contrasting colours. Ik think yellow or red spark plug cables.



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Then the engine treated with the Birchwood gun metal acis Looks terrible, doesn't it?



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After a treatment with an old electric rotating teeth brush and a polishing head on a Dremel.



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And a dry fit with the air intake trumpets.


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Part of the rear suspension. The ends polished. Black springs will be added. The rest of the suspension will be semi gloss black.



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The front wings sanded down as much as possible to a natural aluminium colour of the real thing. Left already done, right as it was before.
Also the inner parts of the wings curved to fit to the curved body.



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On with the new support for the donor rear wing. The old wing will supply the material.



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Anothe step further. I do this in parts because it is a lot of work.



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But finally I got to the end result.



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And connected to the donor rear wing. Inside there is a metal rod for strength.



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And for staying optimistic a dry fit of the engine with the chassis.



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That's all for this time. Untill next update.

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Re: 1/43 ATS HS1 Michael Bleekemolen

Post by Schummie »

Some progress made.

Some more cuts on de body. This to let the engine fit well.


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Worked on the wheels so they are acceptable after painting.



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Then an attempt to copy one of the torsion bars of the donor car. Here still a bit large.



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All pre worked parts primed.


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In the chassis there was a fire extuinguisher. Painted red.



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The camshaft heads painted. Because they are one with the rest of the engine, it took quite some masking work.



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After removing all tape.


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All parts are air brushed. Except the rear wing and the body.
Part of the suspension. The callipers of the disk breaks are made aluminium. With a little brush.



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To try and make the model as good als possible. I added spark plug cables in a contrasting colour.



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And all the cables now have a route to the spark plugs.



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Bleekemolen drove on Watkins Glenn with filters on the intake trumpets. Because he drove without the airbox.



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The tires on the glossy black rims. Because the black gloss, imperfections on the casting are camouflaged.



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I made the springs and dampers as detailed as possible by polishing the inner part and make the springs black.



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The rear suspension connected to the gear box.



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Addes the drive shafts. The are instead the white metal casted ones. The will be shortened later. Lining up things as good as possible.



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The oil tank and an oil cooler added. The torsion bar I made earlier I couldn't use. The dornor kit was an incomplete Lotus 78. The torsion bar was under in that car. On the ATS it was above.
This way I tray to stay as close as possible with the ATS HS1



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Also started with the air brushing of the wing and body. Here in the grey primer. I will add a white primer. This way the primer colours of the body and the rear wing are the same so the yellow will be the same on those parts.



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The body in the right colour. I used yellow paints. Later after decalling a 2K clearcoat will be added. The flaws in the resin casting show now. Hope the clearcoat and the decals will camouflage it later.



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On with an hour of masking work to spray the black parts of the cockpit.



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That worked as planned.



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Some little decal work. Those Tameo kits I build come with double decal sets. For the engine I found some Ford decals.



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For the seat I used the supplied decals. Looks reasonable. They were not cut on the outlines You heave to cut them out yourself.



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For the dash I also looked in my spare decal box.



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After that It became more difficult. The ATS and F&S supplied decals were in fact unuseble. The racing numbers will propably do, but the rest has a very low resolution.



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So I tried to make them myself. Took quite some time.



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Then I discoverd that I used the wrong decal paper. So printed again on the transparant version. Put a protective coating on to prevent the ink from flowing when decalling.
The Champion and the koni decal come again from my spare decal box.



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Also repaced the supplied Goodyear decals.



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Very busy with these decals. Basicly I only used the racing numbers. You can easily see why.



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These Shell sign I printed myself. On this picture it looks a bit less black. After clearcoating it isn't visible anymore.



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The flag on the rear wing is off a bit. I cut to close to the edge, and decal fluid reacted with the "gold" ink. I leave this because the damage trying to remove it will be greater than the gains. Bleekemolden had to race with an older car and parts then Jochen Mass. So a littel wear is acceptable.



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The wheels with the goodyear logo's.



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The rest of the home made decals added.



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Now you can even read the name of Michael Bleekemolen on this macro picture.



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A bit of chrome added to the miriors.



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On second thoughts I looked for a repacement of the flag.



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On the back of the rear wing there have to be another two ATS logo's.



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Next time all parts will be clercoated. And then we will see if I succeeded in limiting the damage on this kit.



Untill next update.

Topic author
Schummie
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Re: 1/43 ATS HS1 Michael Bleekemolen

Post by Schummie »

Update time. It will not be my best model ever. That's clear.
Another series of pictures. Also some setback. When removing some yellow spots on the front wing, some fluid dropped on the front of the body and made some spots. Hope I can remove them with some polishing.

But first some real improvement versus the old front wings.



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Then on with the 2K Zero paint diamond clear coat. The home made decals stayed reaonable. You have to let the prints dry very good. Best is a day. Then seal the decal, en leave it another day to dray.
If you don't, some decal fluid wil insert the decal layers and desolve some of the paint.
How I know?


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The German flag sufferd a bit from not complying to the drying times. Howerver I leave this as I'm afraid that with this fragile model the damage of cleaning and try again will be greater han the present result.



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Ther are angles when you see a reasonable result.



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And some angles with some less result. These macro pictures can be very confronting.



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A made a new roll bar from nickel silver wire. The white metal part in the kit was too poorly casted.



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Her you can see the earlier mentioned damage. Also parts of the front suspension in place.



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Next time the last update and the completion of the model.

Topic author
Schummie
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Re: 1/43 ATS HS1 Michael Bleekemolen

Post by Schummie »

Here we go again.
Another little setback. After measuring the width i got a small difference. I turned the model and the suspension was glued a little off.
I corrected this, without damage.

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Here from above. The earlier mentioned spots on the body clearly visible now.



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The front uprights also assembled, as straight and square as possible.



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The front wheels are a bit far apart. Too much width. A result from this assembled partly scratch build.
To correct this without taking the front suspension apart, I let the rims fall over the bigger diameter of the front uprights.
It will make the track width more scale like.


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To achieve this, i have to drill the inside of the rim,. But not through, to keep the outside of the rim closed.



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The marriage of the engine with the chassis.



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And the spacer from the chassis to the upper part of the rear uprights.



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And the rear wing installed. Also used a metal rod inside to make a solid connection.



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And the wheels attached. With Zero Paints polishing I luckily was able to remove the spots without damaging the clearcoat.



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In the end I'm fairly happy with the result.

First the original car on Watkins Glenn.



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And here the version of the professional builder from racing dioramics inthe US.



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The version that my kit was ment to become.



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And my end result. Not too bad after all the set backs.



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And a detail picture from the back. Made also a little light with transparant red paint.



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And the end pictures of this little project.

The print of the display picture to go with the display case.


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And how it looks in the display box.



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Ans some pictures for the interested viewer.



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That's it people!! Quite an experience!! The next model will be another good fitting, well casted Tameo. The James Hunt M23 McLaren to go with the Ferrari 312T2 races by Niki Lauda.
Stay safe.
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